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I keep hearing this thing on the web that the iPad is "a consumption device, not a creation device". I don't know why people keep saying that. It's fast enough, it has enough storage and it has some seriously powerful applications. If that's your opinion, please enlighten me in the comments.

I spent this morning going through the Apple iPad videos - the keynote and the promotional video - trying to pick up some cues about how the UI conventions are supposed to work. The result is in a set on Flickr.

The iWork demos were most enlightening. Here are some screenshots. Apologies for the quality - they're screenshots of Quicktime Player:

Pages Styles Inspector

Pages Layout Inspector

Numbers Formula Library

Keynote Transition Inspector, showing Magic Move

Look at what's in here: a full stylesheet engine, multi-column page layout, a complete library of cell formulae and a full set of builds and transitions. You can create a Magic Move transition on the iPad. That's probably the most advanced technique you can do in Keynote, and it's there on the iPad.

The Camera Connection Kit gives you two ways to import photos and videos from a digital camera. The Camera Connector lets you import your photos and videos to iPad using the camera’s USB cable. Or you can use the SD Card Reader to import photos and videos directly from the camera’s SD card.

So you can import media from a camera on the fly, and you can use all the power of the iWork suite to create documents. I haven't even mentioned the Brushes demo that was in the keynote.